The Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) is a research tool that was designed to identify potential risks to media pluralism in the Member States of the European Union. This narrative report has been produced within the framework of the second EU-wide implementation of the MPM, carried out in 2017. The implementation was conducted in 28 EU Member States, Serbia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRoM) and Turkey with the support of a grant awarded by the European Union to the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the European University Institute.

The CMPF cooperated with experienced, independent national researchers to carry out the data collection and to author the narrative reports, except in the cases of Malta and Italy where data collection was carried out centrally by the CMPF team. The research is based on a standardised questionnaire and apposite guidelines that were developed by the CMPF. The data collection was carried out between June and December 2017.

In Portugal, the CMPF partnered with Francisco Rui Cádima (PI), Carla Baptista, Luís Oliveira Martins e Marisa Torres da Silva (Universidade Nova de Lisboa and ICNOVA – Instituto de Comunicação da NOVA) who conducted the data collection and annotated the variables in the questionnaire and interviewed relevant experts. The scores assessing the risks for media pluralism were provided by the CMPF and calculated according to the algorithm developed by the Centre itself. The national report was reviewed by CMPF staff. Moreover, to ensure accurate and reliable findings, a group of national experts in each country reviewed the answers to particularly evaluative questions

Results of the first pilot test implementation (MPM2014) are available here.
The results of the second pilot test implementation conducted in 2015 are published as well on the MPM website.

2018 MPM Conference: “Monitoring media pluralism in Europe: between old risks and new threats”.

December 7, Albert Borschette Congress Center. Brussels.

The year 2017 was marred by the assassination, in Malta, of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, an event which represented one of the darkest hours for media freedom and media pluralism in the European Union in recent years. In 2018 other journalists on the front line, Jan Kuciak and Viktoria Marinova were murdered in Slovakia and Bulgaria. These crimes have profoundly shaken Europe and have had an impact on its image as a bastion of human rights and democratic values.

Several years of monitoring the state of play of media pluralism and freedom in Europe by the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) clearly show that no country is free from risks deriving from political, economic or legal conditions for media and journalism. What is worrisome is that the latest findings show a deterioration in most areas covered by the MPM. In particular, an increase of risk for the area of Basic protection, which covers the very essential conditions for a democratic society, including the safety of journalists and protection of freedom of expression stands as a call for immediate action.

In addition to the “traditional” sources of risks to media pluralism, contemporary digital environment creates new challenges. Growing importance of a few digital intermediaries and social platforms strongly affect the news business, news distribution and audiences habits. It has opened a Pandora’s box of threats such as spread of online disinformation and hate speech, misuse of personal data for political advertising, non-transparent content moderation, net neutrality violations, etc.

The aim of this event is twofold: first, to present and discuss the latest findings of the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM 2017); and second to deliberate – with scholars, experts, stakeholders and policy-makers from different parts of Europe – the digital-related challenges, trying to address possible ways of measuring such risks, as a precondition for acting upon them.

More info: http://cmpf.eui.eu/event/save-the-date-cmpf-annual-conference-brussels/?instance_id=36

Risks for media pluralism and the safety of journalists are increasing across Europe

The 2017 Media Pluralism Monitor reports, covering 31 European countries (EU 28 and three candidate countries: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey) are out!

The findings show either general stagnation or deterioration in all of the four major areas encompassed by the MPM: Basic protection, Market plurality, Political independence and Social inclusiveness. The MPM 2017 has also confirmed the findings of the previous four rounds of monitoring – showing that no country analysed is free from risks to media pluralism.

Journalists and other media actors are facing a series of threats and attacks (physical and digital) in several European countries.

Journalists’ working conditions are deteriorating, exposing journalists to external and undue pressures in their professional work in most of the countries examined.

Whistleblower protection is still weak across Europe.

Media ownership concentration remains one of the most significant risks to media pluralism and is seen as creating barriers to diversity of information and viewpoints.

News organisations continue to be vulnerable to political interference, especially when economic conditions are unstable.

A lack of political independence of public service media, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, remains a matter of concern.

Lack of gender equality in managerial and content creation roles in European media organisations represents one of the highest risk scores recorded by the Monitor.

Little or no progress has been registered with regard to media literacy across the EU.

The Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) is a tool that has been developed by our Centre to assess the risks for media pluralism in a given country

Prior to the 2017 implementation, the tool has been implemented in 2016 and tested under two pilot-projects co-funded by the European Union in 2014 and 2015. These two pilot-test implementations built on the prototype of the MPM that was designed in the 2009 Independent Study on Indicators for Media Pluralism in the Member States – Towards a Risk-Based Approach carried out by KU Leuven, JIBS, CEU, Ernst&Young, and a team of national experts (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/media_taskforce/doc/pluralism/pfr_report.pdf).